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Saturday, January 24, 2015

My Favorite Time and Place to Read? How About Writing Time? #Round Robin

Life keeps getting busier, and
finding time to complete daily tasks is difficult, but I always, always find
time to read.

This month’s question:

What is your favorite time and
place to read? How about writing time? Do you have to make time?
Do you have a ritual or is your plan helter-skelter? What's your method?

As a child it was hiding beneath
my covers with a flashlight long past my prescribed bedtime. Today, it more of a snatch of time here and
there. While preparing dinner (e-reader/ iPad /paperback
on the counter), 10:30 p.m. wrapped in a woven throw on the couch listening to
Slacker Radio on my iPad (when I should be sleeping), or with a grand-baby
snuggled in my lap. Reading is a
pleasure, an escape, a way to share stories with others.

I make time to read, I make time
to go to the gym, and I make time for family and friends. These day-to-day activities weave, in my
opinion, the fabric of a well-balanced and enjoyable life.

Writing Time—the second part of
today’s blog topic.

My method of writing?

I make it a practice to study the
master of successful fiction. Hemingway
never wrote a treatise of the art of writing fiction. He did, however, leave behind letters,
articles and books with opinions and advice on writing. Some of the best of those were assembled in
1984 by Larry W. Phillips into a book Ernest
Hemingway on Writing. While I do not rigidly follow these steps, I
always keep them in the back of my mind.

1: To get started, write one true sentence. One simple declarative sentence.

·Charlene hadn’t told Rachel that she’d fixed her up
with a cowboy, much less Lynx Maddox, the “Wild Cat” of the rodeo circuit.

(Lynx, Rodeo Romance)

·“You and Elvis have done a great job on this house,”
Meredith said as her older sister led the way downstairs toward the kitchen
where the tour began. “Sorry I couldn’t get over, until now, but I’ve been sort
of. . .well, busy.”

(Here Today, Zombie Tomorrow) Sassy & Fun Fantasy
Series.

·Audralynn Maddox heard her own soft cry, but the pain exploding inside
her head made everything else surreal, distanced by the realization that
someone had made a mistake.

(Brede, Rodeo Romance Book 2)

My
exception: my YA historical novel is
told in the first person. Since the
novel focuses on the emotional and life altering events of a young girl, I used
historical facts and events to form the plot of my award-winning novel, Simple declarative
sentences are applied to the Prologue and Introduction. However, emotional impact was needed to make
the story ‘real’.

·Prologue: The Governor of New Mexico decreed that all Indian children
over six be educated in the ways of the white man.

Indian commissioner Thomas Morgan said: It was cheaper to educate the
Indians than to kill them.

1880, Apacheria, Season of Ripened Berries

Isolated bands of colored clay on white limestone remained where the
sagebrush was stripped from Mother Earth by sudden storms and surface waters.
Desolate. Bleak. A land made of barren rocks and twisted paths that reached out
into the silence.

A world of hunger and hardship.
This is my world. I am Tanayia. I
was born thirteen winters ago. My people and I call ourselves “Nde” this means “The
People”. The white men call us Apache.

(Whisper upon the Water, Native American Series).

2: Always stop
for the day while you still know what will happen next. I find this to be a key for me. When I do not follow this step I find myself
flirting with writer’s block the next day.

3: Never think
about the story when you’re not working.
I carry this to an extreme, I do not talk about my work-in-progress. The only exception being when I have research
questions or trying to plot a continuing series.

4: When it’s
time to work again, always start by reading what you’ve written so far. The only problem, I am sooo tempted to
make revisions. For most part I beat
back the urge (with a stick, if necessary ;-).
Otherwise, I’d never progress beyond chapter one.

5: Don’t
describe an emotion–make it. Watch and
listen closely to external events, but to also notice any emotion stirred in
you, or others, by the events and then trace back and identify precisely what
it was that caused the emotion. If you can identify the concrete action or
sensation that caused the emotion and present it accurately and fully rounded
in your story, your readers should feel the same emotion. When I am uncertain as to whether I’ve conveyed
too little, or too much (insert: whiny), I ask my BF and fellow BWL writer,
Geeta Kakade. Geeta is the master of
writing emotion (just ask Debbie Macomber).

6: Use a
pencil. A mechanical
pencil, please (multiple selection of refill sizes and colors available online). I do not like to conduct an unproductive
search for a pencil sharpener—or heaven forbid, be reduced to whittling a semi-acceptable
point with my dull paring knife.

7: Be Brief. To quoteHemingway:
It wasn’t by accident that the
Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as
those of flight, of mathematics, of physics. Therefore, I revise ruthlessly,
use strong verbs, and avoid adverbs, and always, always step away from the
keyboard when it is time to type: The End.

Well said, Connie! I knew you when you kept revising those first three chapters and wouldn't move on and am glad I was part of your 'beating the urge with a stick' brigade back then.Your pointers are a good refresher course on how to keep writing, no matter what.Geeta

I'm probably one of the few English majors who does not like Hemmingway's style of writing. Shocking, I know, but true.

I agree with most of your points except number 3 in writing...I ALWAYS think about my stories when I'm not actively writing. That way when I finally get a chance to sit and type, the story will flow out of me, since I already know how the next scenes are going to happen.